Women Should Just Be Honest

I get where they’re coming from, but it’s still not great being a guy and only getting vague signals that you’re trying to piece together. Ghosting is also another issue that’s honestly just disrespectful.
While it may ultimately be those man children who ruin it for everyone, some upfront honesty is generally very appreciated.
- While it might feel rough for you, it's worth remembering that a lot of women have faced very real threats of violence for their upfront honesty.
  If you're only getting vague signals then maybe that's the sign that she's not fully into you.
  
  I feel like this is very dismissive and also ignores that lots of relationships do inevitably start with vague signals.
  “Yeah, well, women have it worse so your feelings are irrelevant and it’s okay if they ghost you.”
  As I said in my original comment, I get it. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a difficult situation for men.
  Being dismissive of men’s feelings and not letting them talk about how dating is difficult for them isn’t helping anyone.
  
  Yeah, for men the likely worst case scenario is embarrassment, women can get straight-up beaten or murdered
  
  Yet I read other thread were women removeded and men acknowledge that we just miss signs when they interested. Its a no win situation. Man glad met my wife on a dating app and we communicated properly.
  But the comic got real point because there was other thread and women dicussed dating and man the crap they deal with makes you wonder they even bother.
- vague signals
  If a woman gives me vague signals it's a sign that she's not right for me. Everything other than a "hell yes" is a no. Which is fine, I'm okay with being alone. But I'm not going to chase someone who hints that they're into me, because I'm too damn old for that shit.
  
  Everything other than a “hell yes” is a no.
  This must be said more frequently. This is the correct attitude. You may be alone longer, but you haven't terrorized anybody. It's a net win.
  
  Also, don’t take the disrespect personally. Especially if it’s someone new in your life, they don’t know you deeply enough for that to be a personal thing.
  It’s just the game she’s decided is necessary for her safety. It might be perceivable as disrespectful, but security procedures often are. Like if you went to your friend’s house and they demanded to search you for weapons that might seem disrespectful.
  But you’re not friends with this person ghosting you. They don’t know who you are. And in some environments, when someone unknown to you comes to your house you pat them down for weapons, even if it diminishes the hospitality.
- It’s also a bit like the job market in some professions. The good ones are more likely to be taken, so you have a magnifying effect on people who tend not to have successful relationships.
  People are not very effective communicators.
- Ghosting is also another issue that’s honestly just disrespectful.
  Maybe it's because I'm a zoomer, but ghosting for me is just kind of expected. It's mildly frustrating to encounter someone who doesn't really reciprocate your feelings or what have you, and it's maybe more disrespectful if it happens like, after the second or third date, but if someone ghosts you after the first date, I don't really think it matters that much. Certainly, I'd rather not have to confront it than have them tell me that they're not interested. That's not really a satisfying answer, "they're not interested", right. It makes you want to ask "why", but realistically they're not going to be able to give you a reasonable, realistic, actionable answer. They're just gonna be pulling stuff outta their ass. So I don't really care all that much, I don't think it matters.
- Ghosting is also another issue that’s honestly just disrespectful.
  While that can be annoying, if somebody's ghosting you, that's just a signal to move on, yeah? You probably don't want a relationship with somebody who can't communicate, anyway.
  
  It's a shitty signal because it is just not replying to you and not a specific signal on its own. Could be for a bunch of reasons so you'll have to guess that they're ghosting you. It takes a while and even then you might not be sure.
- This exact kind of situation does happen all the time. I don't believe it's a majority of men at all, but even if it's a small percentage, that's still a lot because of the magnitude of their actions. Even if it's only a 5% chance that rejecting a guy is going to cause them to go completely off the rails, you're still not going to want to take that chance because there's nothing in it for you, and in those 5% of cases it's going to be extremely upsetting, or in some cases, actually physically dangerous to you.
- I concur. It is also very hard to make a rationale for whether your date is ghosting you, is just busy, or is not in a good mood. Obviously, if she is not in a good mood or is busy, she would prefer not to reply to me (because she might unintentionally ruin the bond), but what if she's just not interested in me and thus is ignoring me?
  If you like this person a lot, your feelings will likely corrupt your rationale. Your hopes won't let you move on; you will keep suffering, deciding whether to move on or not.
- Have you considered being upfront and honest about your feelings? Why are you trying to piece together signals instead of just saying you're interested?
  
  What made you think they're not being upfront and honest about their own feelings?
  
  Harassment law suits mostly. And pepperspray.
- You are the person in this comic.
  Also another common third panel would be: not taking no for an answer and pursuing.
  
  @li10@feddit.uk : "I get where they’re coming from, but it can be annoying..."
  The person in the comic: "Stupid fat removed slut!"
  Yeah seem about the same

- Thank you. This is just a reaction shitty people can have regardless of gender. If their fragile ego can't handle a rejection they go to anger and insults immediately. So bizarre.
- Seriously, all the same 'plays' too:
  lol rofl you think I was actually asking?
  you're ugly anyway
  (if the rejection is based on you already being in a relationship) she's ugly, you'll never find someone as hot as me
  (if you're single) you're gay/you're a f*ggot
  (slur related to your race, more common if the rejected is of a different race)
  
  Seems like you speak out of experience. Sorry for you. It's sad that so many people forget how to treat each other respectfully.
- "Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them."
  There's a reason Margaret Atwood was the person who pointed this out.
  
  Classic Margaret.
- Oh no, emotions! I sure hope there aren't some damning statistics about how many women die for saying no.
  
  There aren't?
- One thing women does that men don't... Is that they remember every single time you did something dumb, and they will use that as ammunition in every fight.
  
  First, this is not exclusive to women. Men can and do do this. Second, if that's your experience then you need to hang around with better women. My wife does not do this, even in the very rare instances that we've ever had a fight about something. Probably because she's a normal, mature adult who recognizes that people, including me, make mistakes now and then.
  
  You’re an idiot if you think men don’t do that too.
  
  That can be. That doesn't kill you, though.

Young fellas; as a not so young fella who some say used to fuck: Don't be a dick while thinking with your dick.
It's that easy. You be you, be whatever you're interested in, and just use your goddamn eye balls to read if the person is uncomfortable. If they are, smile and fuck off king. Keep it going; don't be a dick and watch that aura work and that dick get wet.
But remember, you have to genuinely not be a dick. Be yourself, be assertive or not, there's someone (many someones even) for everyone and never mind the bullshit rules 1 and 2 you self-deluded fucks.
Don't. Be. A. Dick.
You'll be happier, the people around you will be happier, and you will fuck and feel good about it while making others feel good about it. Simple secret.
Don't. Be. A. Dick.
- Yeah as a woman who gets plenty of women. Women want to fuck too. If the lady you’re hitting on isn’t reciprocating that’s cool find one who is.
  Also your mental and emotional shit being together is way more attractive than it has any right to be. I’m not kidding, I’m moderately attractive but the fact that I can take no for an answer, clean my bathroom, and introspect on my emotions does wonders with the women already attracted to me.
  Remember you aren’t gonna turn a no into a yes, but you can turn a yes into a no or a no into a restraining order.
- I'm also a not-so-young dude - forgotten generation - and honestly I don't remember guys being like this. At least, not to women's faces. Being rejected sucks and is a hit to your self-image, so there was the occasional after-the-fact, booze-fueled name-calling while among the guys, but to must of us, being rejected was something we were embarrassed about and didn't advertise by sharing.
  Our generations - boomers, gen-x - are selfish, greedy, and short sighted. OTOH, from survey of N=1 (my wife) getting this sort of response from men wasn't a concern.
  
  I mean there is also a massive amount of underreporting of sexual violence from that time and if you were born a man then there's a good chance that if you were respectful you may have never been in the room where someone was getting assaulted or harassed. That's not your fault, I'm glad you might not have been one of the shitty people to hurt others, but I'm pretty sure this shit has been happening a long time.
  coming from a no-so-old dude who believes in respect and vibing.
  
  Why would you remember guys being like this if you're not a woman? Obviously you would not experience this situation if you were never in this situation because you're a man. This interaction is going to happen where you don't see them. Just ask some women around you if they've ever been scared by the response of a man they rejected. You'll find that the majority of women have.
  
  Being rejected sucks and is a hit to your self-image
  A hit to your self-esteem maybe but you look all the better if you handle it nicely. If only guys understood that concept.
- Let me preface this by saying that I’m old.
  I was out for a long run yesterday. Playing the Hype Running List on Spotify. Enjoying most of the songs/artists being played thwre, eg, RATM, Beastie Boys, even some older stuff.
  One song I was a bit meh about was The Boys Are Back In Town by Thin Lizzie. But this time, the lyrics made me stop and have a wtf moment. Here’s what I’m referring to:
  You know that chick that used to dance a lot Every night she'd be on the floor, shakin' what she's got Man, when I tell you she was cool, she was red-hot I mean, she was steamin'
  And that time over at Johnny's place Well, this chick got up and she slapped Johnny's face Man, we just fell about the place If that chick don't wanna know, forget her
  And I was like “hold up, are they saying what I think they’re saying?” Like, why would she slap his face? And why would you guys be dismissive of her and cool with Johnny?
  Being hot/attractive doesn’t give you license to assault someone. So fuck off with that shit.

- I thought it was a kind of muppety thing.
- I really hate them. There’s something very disturbing about them.
  Edit: a word
- The girl looks like her nose was sliced off
- The red on the cheeks really sells it as well. It could be intentional
- Not an artist, but the hands look fine to me. What's wrong with them?

I don't really see the point of being mean. Most humans want sex. Just move on to those that want it with you. It's not a rejection. Just a mismatch.
- It is a rejection. No reason to bend the language.
  The key thing is a rejection doesn’t have to be some judgment on your whole self worth. It’s a problem when you put so much energy into it.
  Instead of waiting until you’ve written your whole life story with her in the role of The Mother of Your Children, or The One Who’s Gonna Make You Cool Via Sex, just think of her as a girl it might be fun to hang out with this afternoon. And if she doesn’t want to, no biggie.
  It’s investing all this energy, turning the asking out into this big emotional event, that’s the problem.

This and just not accepting a "no" have been the most common responses in my long lifetime.
Though during the soviet occupation there were also way too many cases of them reporting you to the soviets for some "corrective rape" and/or a trip to siberia because clearly you would be gay if you weren't interested but that's thankfully not a thing anymore.
There's a reason women avoid just outright saying no even if all men wouldn't react this way: The ones that do make it dangerous.

Unironically women should be able to say no instead of just ghosting nonstop, just say literally anything. Communication benefits both sides
- yeah, would be nice, but won't happen when there's such a big chance the guy might snap and attack them. obviously women aren't stupid and quickly learn to avoid being attacked.
  
  How often do these attacks happen in real life? I am genuinely curious about the statistics and occurrences as I have daughters and want them to be safe.
- But also that implies women aren’t giving reasons or saying to back off and those are just being ignored or twisted. Do some women ghost? Yes I’m certain. Is every ghosting you hear a man talk about actually a ghosting? No I’m very certain because I recently had a friend go through this where she kept telling a guy that she’s not interested in ways that were trying to be nice about it as he’s an emotionally unstable gun nut and he just didn’t get it until she point blank told him never to reach out to her again, never to speak to her again, and then had a male friend say the same.
  The whole thing reminded me of the missing missing reasons
- By ghosting do you mean one time they don't respond and you move on with your life, or do you mean you reach out multiple times and they don't respond?
  
  You can pretty quickly determine when you've been blocked, that's how most people ghost.
- No, woman have to be passive-aggressive, because there are so many psychotic men! It's like you didn't even read the comic or something.
  
  Are you being sarcastic? Because there are. It doesn't take a majority to make it make women scared to be honest, just a few percentage and a few really bad experiences will make you scared.

removed shit
- removed shit
  He says "removed Slut" not "removed Shit"
  
  King Shit

- I'm a dude and I would love a world where women feel safe to be open with their boundaries. This comic nails it in that the problem isn't women, it's other men.
  Patriarchal society doesn't just hurt women, it hurts men too.
  Any guys reading this- we don't have to be the problem, in fact we are part of the solution. We are not useless, we are not supposed to just shut up and listen, we are supposed to be role models for the next generation. We have work to do, and when everyone benefits, we will benefit too. This isn't a zero sum game.
  I'm an educator, and I try to teach the girls that men don't need to be feared, and teach the boys not to be men to be afraid of. It's my job to show the boys that there is an alternative masculinity to what Andrew Tate prescribes.
  If anyone wants a good YouTube male role model, I suggest John Green. I want more men who can recite Emily Dickinson and be open with their emotions in healthy ways.
  
  There’s a flip side to this. And full disclosure, I’m a guy trying to be part of the solution.
  The flip is that guys are assumed to be dangerous. That’s the default. And yeah, some guys are dangerous, but imagine if every time you met someone new they flinched back when you tried to shake their hand. Every. Single. Time. Would you continue to try to shake hands? Or would you shy away from meeting new people?
  Now, obviously that example is an extreme. Virtually no one has that happen, but we see similar communicated all the time. Women crossing the street because they don’t want to walk in front of a guy. People suspicious of a man at a park just watching his kid. Etc.
  I’m not saying women don’t have a right to feel nervous, or even that they are wrong to feel the way they do. I’m just pointing out that being treated like I could explode at any moment wears on my soul. And being told “this isn’t about you” really doesn’t change much about how it makes me feel.
- Nothing worse than (gender, sex) giving their opinions on something.
  
  male men
- lol @ the schmucks feeling threatened by men giving their opinions or feel the need to preemptively post personal attacks.
- Clearly you've not yet read my book 'Angry Men Are A Myth: why everyone should stop telling me to get therapy'
  Every copy comes with a discount code for 5% off a Thinking Mans Fedora!
  Remeber kids, the best devil's advocates shop exclusively from NotAllMen LLC.
- Thinking you don't look stupid mocking people for not appreciating sex-based stereotyping and assuming is the real "lol".
  The extra dumb part is that the kind of guys in the first panel, are invariably not the same guys in the third panel, but the comic is desperate to 'expose' hypocrisy by pretending they are. That's another reason for the male frustration in here--it's all coming from 'first panel' guys, who all know they're not 'third panel' guys.
- Ok, white knight.

Honest question: did guys in the generation that makes them about 16-26 now have some sort of generationally curly hair event? Or are dudes getting perms, or what the heck is happening. Nothing against curly hair, it just seems like suddenly almost all young guys have curly hair and a broccoli hair cut.
Edit: oh, duh. Dude's are using curling irons. I'm an idiot.
- I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the broccolis get perms.

It's safest to stay in your dank basement.
However, we all must live before we die, that's why we take the risk of leaving the basement... till you get a 30 pack of Bush light and some pizza. Then its back to the basement.

-deleted-

This kinda nails it tbh

I hate this rhetoric. It implies that this a refular occurence. It is just a man hating comment. If this is happening to you frequently, maybe you are the problem. I am tired of being assumed an asshole just because I am a man. It is sexist. Plain and simple.
- It's important to remember it this way:
  If you're in a club with 99 amazing men, and one totally perverted creep who flips to aggression on a dime, guys like that won't stop after harassing the first woman they meet in the club. By the end of the night, 4 out of 5 women who attended that club have had an experience of a guy hitting on them and getting aggressive when they reject him, and there's a good chance it's all the same guy. It doesn't matter that proportionally there are waaaay more good men at the club, the reality is that almost every woman in that club had a scary experience that night because of a man.
  Now that happens every night you go out, if it's not you getting harassed, it's your bestie and you need to stick together. Sure, you and your girls are meeting 2 or 3 great guys who you have lovely interactions without. But in the uber home you're not talking about how nice that bloke and his mates you met on the dance floor was, you're checking in to make sure your friend is okay after that one guy tried to slip his hand up her skirt while she was ordering at the bar, only to get threatened with rape when she said "please stop that".
  So, yes, it is a regular occurrence, not because the men who do this are regular in the population (though in some areas due to the local subcultures, they are) it's a regular occurrence because the few men who do this are serial harassers, and for every woman you politely and respectfully flirt with, the assholes are out there harassing 10 or 20 women.
  Now I do understand how frustrating it is when we say "Urgh, men" and not "Urgh, specific men who like this", but when that one creep is a new creep every time you go out, and you're creeped on every time you go out by the one guy there who is a creep, the other 99 men fade into the background because they aren't a threat, you don't need to be vigilant around them, so you aren't thinking about them. He's one guy out of 100, but his level of threat and danger dominates the women's lasting perception of the safety of the space, and why is it unsafe? Because of a man, which man? It could be any man, you won't know until you interact with them, so until you know, the danger isn't a man, it's men. I know that while there are a thousand species of snake only about 30 have a truly fatal bite, but I'm still going to say "I'm afraid of snakes", even while I'm giving a chill pet carpet python a happy little cuddle.
  And it sucks, I'm sorry you get lumped in with assholes due to the way women use language to describe their fears and concerns over some men.
  What you're experiencing is how these bad men effect all people, not just the women they harass. And it's a great reason to join the social movements working to reduce behaviours of concern among these groups of aggressive men.
  But while it's frustrating that this social issue causes you to feel prejudged as dangerous, at least this social issue isn't a risk to your physical safety the same way it is for women.
  
  Schrödinger's creep.
  You put this in better words than I would have. Great post!
- It is a regular occurrence. Ask your female friends about it.
  You’re tired? They’re exhausted. Toxic behavior from aggressive men caused this collective fatigue.
  Unless you behave like the man in the comic, this isn’t about you.
  Maybe instead of pretending this super common thing doesn’t happen, you could encourage other men like I am doing right now.
  
  I hear you. However I think the overall angst is geared towards the perspective that this is most likely outcome from men. I know there are jerks. But we are not all jerks. And he seems to have been told many times it's assumed he will be a jerk.
  
  This is the exact same logic used by white supremacists to rationalize criticizing black people as a group.
  Unless you behave like the man in the comic, this isn’t about you.
  'If you're a black guy who ISN'T like the stupid violent gangster stereotype I just depicted, this isn't about you. How dare you be offended at my depiction!'
- Not sure I buy that this comic isn't a valid perspective. You've read into it that the author is claiming this is a universal experience but from the context it could equally be theirs.
  Men and women alike are both awkward and bad at acknowledging rejection so I'm certain there is another comic out there with an alternative point of view on a situation like this.
  Kind of an aside, but I learnt through harsh experiences as a youth that people basically categorise everyone else into a potential viable partner or not within about 5 mins of meeting them. Once that window has shut it is hard to change someone's opinion of you. I suspect situations like this comic arise because the person asking for the date is asking without looking for cues from the other person that they see them as a potential romantic interest.
- For many women, it is a regular occurance. Perhaps if you are frequently being assumed an asshole, maybe you are the problem?
  
  Or, perhaps both genders have assholes among them and we, as a society, have lost our ability to communicate with the opposite (or same) sex as caring, feeling human beings.
  
  Perhaps if you are frequently being assumed an asshole, maybe you are the problem?
  This is a phenomenally stupid sentence, lmao. Maybe he's the problem if people frequently ASSUME something about him? If they ASSUME?
  Wow.
  
  That's the thing though, I am not the problem, it's some other asshole that can't take rejection. He is the problem. Two different people.
  
  He's obviously the problem. Classic victim blaming behavior. Incel in the making there.

I've always just added the pain to the top of the pile and carried on with my awful life.
- I hope you find someone you can unload with.
  
  Bow chicka

It goes both ways.
Truth of the matter is that people do not know what they want.

Girl: Sorry, but I'm not interested.
Guy: Stupid fat removed slut!
Who responds like that?
Edit: Removed unnecessary statement.
- You're not a woman I'm guessing
  
  I don't have to be a woman to know that men generally don't respond like that. This is silly.
  I've never seen a man respond like that to being rejected, ever.
- Are people with short tempers more likely to get angry at people who are bigger than them, or smaller than them? Smaller, of course.
  And there you have it. That explains the entire comic. Both women and men can have short tempers, but it's way easier for a dude to scream at a woman and not end up dead. So it happens.
  This is why they say that, while It's not all men, it's almost only men. Because men are bigger and it's safer for them to be angry and act immature.
  So the stereotype is valid. Don't get butthurt unless you act like the guy in the comic.
  
  I understand what you are saying, and I don't want to invalidate your concerns. I can see now that this comic resonates with women more than it would with a man.
- A somewhat small minority of men do actually act like that and thus it is assumed that all men are definitely going to act like that so they don't have to risk danger.
  It sucks horribly for both sexes but unlikely to be a better solution really
  
  Yeah, this comic could reflect the feelings of women who were unlucky enough to meet such outrageously bad people, or at least have the fear of meeting such a person.
  But to say that this is the rule is, I feel, a stretch.
- You need to touch grass and talk to more women if you don't know that most women have experiences exactly like this.
  
  I think perhaps you do. None of my friends have ever been talked to this way. In what kind of backwards shit hole do you live?
- Yeah this is the dumbest comic I’ve ever seen. An absurd characterisation of reality. I thought it was satire at first but the comments seem to be taking it seriously. There are surely assholes out there but to only this is a regular occurrence is some legbeard basement-dwelling incel nonsense.
  
  I can't relate at all either from personal experience. My concern when reading something that I cannot relate to is that what I'm reading could have been astroturfed. We are in a pseudonymous discussion forum where anyone can LARP as anything and make shit up. It's not a stretch to say that this vulnerability could be used to further agendas through manipulation in an organized manner.
  There are a few ways to verify what people are saying, that I know of. One is to use established studies, and another one is to use anecdotes. But if all I have is hearsay from some internet account, then I can't take it as truthful until I have something that can verify it. It doesn't mean I will discard what people say, or not take them seriously, but I will exercise caution.
  Anyway, upon further reflection on what people have said, I am inclined to take the concerns that OP (and others here) express more seriously. It's wrong to say that these people can never exist, and I would not like to invalidate the fears that some women have for such people. I simply reacted based on my own anecdotal experience, but other people can be more unlucky than I, and may develop said fears.

What a twist!

- It's a comics…

And don’t forget he grabs a gun and shoots a bunch of people in the mall.
- Lmao!

ITT: men who refuse to believe women. Like every time.
- We live in a world which contains certain individuals who make millions of dollars by pretending to be perpetually victimized. A little skepticism is natural. I don’t expect you to fix that, I simply expect you to acknowledge that the problem of shitty men like the one in the comic is a problem of a similar scale and will not be solved overnight. And also that it will not be solved by demonizing men.
  
  No. Clearly it will be solved by men doubting women's problems. Men are so fragile.